11. Alex
ELEVEN
Alex
I sit down at the large lunch table in the middle of the cafeteria. It’s the biggest one in here, and it seems to be unofficially reserved for the entire football team, as well as the cheerleaders. Brooke’s a cheerleader, so of course she sits here, and after a week or two of dating me she decided I would also sit here.
“Baby!” She sits down next to me, pressing a kiss to my cheek. “I missed you this weekend. Can you please come over on Friday? I can’t stand being away from you for two whole days.”
I force a smile and place my hand on her tan thigh. “Yeah, sure. I’d love to.”
I don’t tell her that I spent Saturday with Opal. Ever since Brooke and I got together, she’s kind of monopolized most of my free time. Well, all of it, really. She’s a good girlfriend, she’s sweet, and attentive. But she can be a tad bit clingy.
Not that I think she’d be mad that I was with Opal specifically, but I know she’d be upset if she knew I wasn’t stuck at home doing homework like I said I was. Mainly I just don’t want Opal and I’s friendship to suffer because of my relationship. I meant what I said to her, I can’t lose her, it would crush me.
“Alex!” One of the guys from the football team, Derrick, sits down across from us and holds his hand out to dap me up. He’s a nice guy, a year older than us so he’s a sophomore. We've become lukewarm friends since I started sitting here.
“‘Sup man?” I return the gesture.
The three of us briefly discuss what our weekends were like, and then Derrick starts telling us a story about the ‘craziest party ever’ that took place after the game on Friday.
I feel guilty, I haven’t attended any football games yet, even though Brooke has been asking me to. It’s hard. Ezra played football every year since he was twelve, and he was great at it, he made the varsity team in Ridgewood his sophomore year.
Watching a game here would dredge up some unwanted memories, and so far I haven’t even told Brooke about my brother. Or anything else about my family, for that matter.
I flick my eyes across the cafeteria for a brief moment, and they land on a small circular table in the corner of the room. Opal, her friend Maisie, and two other girls I don’t recognize are sitting there, talking and laughing. Unlike the other three, I notice that Opal’s face isn’t as enthusiastic. She has this faraway look in her eyes, she always looks like that when she’s worried about something, I’ve noticed.
Shaking my head subtly, I return my attention to the people I’m supposed to be having a conversation with. But now it seems that they’re talking to another group of people about football. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate sports, but I don’t really enjoy talking about them.
Some days I can’t deny that I feel completely out of place here. All of Brooke’s friends are nice enough, surprisingly, but I don’t feel like I have much in common with them. I’m not even sure that I have much in common with her. We both like music, and we both like to drink, but that’s pretty much the extent of it.
My mind wanders back to the night she asked me out. I don’t know what I expected Opal’s reaction to be, but…it wasn’t that.
She didn’t care. At all. In fact she encouraged me to give Brooke a chance, so I did. It’s not like I had any reason not to. Deep down, I hoped Opal would say she didn’t want me to date her. For a split second I thought I might’ve felt a spark between the two of us, but I guess I was wrong, it was one-sided.
It’s probably for the best, I’d never want to jeopardize our friendship anyway.